The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Arrest over IRA pub carnage
Aman has been arrested in connection with the murders of 21 people in the 1974 pub bombings in Birmingham.
The arrest comes just days before the 46 th anniversary of the two deadly November 21 blasts which ripped apart the Mulberry Bush and Tavern in the Town pubs.
West Midlands Police said officers from the West Midlands counterterrorism unit, working with colleagues from the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), arrested a 65- year- old man at his home in Belfast yesterday.
The man was arrested under the Terrorism Act and a search of his home is being carried out.
The force said he would be interviewed under caution at a police station in Northern Ireland.
It comes just a month after Home Secretary Priti Pat el said she would consider holding a public inquiry into the bombings.
Ms Patel also wanted to visit Birmingham to meet campaigners, including Julie Hambleton, whose 18-year-old sister Maxine died in the bombings.
Responding to news of the arrest, Ms Hambleton called it “the most monumental event” in the investigation into the bombings since the quashing of the convictions of the Birmingham Six in 1991.
When she was telephoned by a police officer with news of the arrest, she told of how she broke down in tears. “I was just inconsolable and was just looking at the picture of Maxine,” she said.
Ms Hambleton, who is part of campaign group Justice for the 21, said: “There are wider issues which need to be examined and so much that went wrong, like why six men were arrested for a crime they didn’t commit.
“The fact is we have had to beg and campaign and give up our lives as we knew them to fight for justice.
“How was it that for so long, after 21 people were blown up and more than 200 other innocent souls were injured, nobody was looking for the perpetrators?”
In April last year, an inquest jury found a botched IRA warning call led to the deaths.
A flawed investigation by West Midlands Police led to the wrongful convictions of the Birmingham Six – one of the worst miscarriages of justice in British legal history.